Scream If You Know What The X-Men Did Last Summer
by Mr Sinister
Summary: The X-Men are having a costume ball for Halloween, and the team is getting dressed up in style. The horror!


**__**

**_Scream If You Know What The X-Men Did Last Summer_**

    "I don't believe you're wearing that, Betsy," Warren says, as he catches a glimpse of me in the mirror. "I really didn't think you were going to go through with it." I pose for him, legs in an isosceles stance, twirling my long red tail around one finger and planting a hand on one red-spandex-clad hip as I do so. 

   "Oh, come on now, Warren," I say, encouragingly. "We're husband and wife – we _have to complement each other." I tweak one of the horns on the hood that covers my head up to the edge of my hairline, and pull at it to try and get it straighter than it seems to want to be. "And since you're doing what you do every year – which is very lazy, if I'm honest – I have to go for the opposite end of the scale. And besides –" and I give him a come-hither smile – "don't you think I look good in this outfit?"_

   Warren shrugs, the long white nightshirt that covers him down to his ankles barely moving as he does so, and makes a few hemming and hawing noises, as if he is still trying to make up his mind. He shifts his sandal-clad feet a little closer to me and then slips an arm around my waist. "Good enough to eat," he whispers in my ear, before kissing me on the cheek. I bat him playfully away with my hand, making mildly affronted noises.

   "Stop it, Warren – you'll smudge my make-up." Warren raises an eyebrow and then gestures at my ensemble with his free hand.

   "Yeah, I meant to talk to you about that… I thought you'd look better with just the bodysuit. The whole face-paint thing just makes you look, well… a little silly."

   "This is Halloween, Warren. It's _supposed to be silly, remember?" I slap him gently on the chest, tickling him under the armpit. "Besides, you're the one dressed in a nightshirt and sandals."_

   "What can I say?" Warren says, shrugging again. "Being the Angel Gabriel just gets easier every year. I guess it must just be my divine charms…" He glances towards the ceiling for a second or two, as if he's waiting for a beam of light to come and help him ascend to the heavens. Then still looking towards the ceiling, he continues, out of the side of his mouth, "This is the part where you say 'Yes, Warren, you sure are a blessing,' Betsy."

   I sigh. "Yes, Warren, you sure are a blessing." 

   Warren grins, and squeezes my waist. "There ya go. You're learning already!" He reaches across to the top of the dresser and picks up the wire halo that had been lying on top of my make-up box, before carefully putting it onto his head and clipping its lower ring to a few lock of his hair, taking pains to make sure that it is secure before he turns to me and says "And that's the finishing touch. Don't I look great?"

   "I suppose so," I tell him with a small laugh. "I bet Saint Peter would let you right in without lifting a finger." Then, gesturing towards the door, I continue "You know, if we're both ready, we could make our way downstairs to the garden. I'm sure the rest of the team are there by now." 

   Warren raises an eyebrow, considers the point, and then offers me his right arm. "Sure. Let's not keep them waiting any longer than they have to… we both know that we'll be the stars of the show, right?"

   "Show-off." Hooking my left arm through his elbow, I follow him down the stairs towards the patio where the rest of the team has gathered for our little get-together. As we walk down the stairs, I can see Jean coming back up them in a hurry. She has painted the skin of her face, neck and hands chalk-white with pan-stick, with a couple of red pin-pricks on her neck dribbling a pair of thin red stains, which glisten in the light. Her eyes are edged with dark lines of kohl, and her lips are painted jet-black. She has dyed her hair a rich midnight black and I can see a pair of stage fangs peeking out from beneath her upper lip. She is dressed in a voluminous purple evening gown that has elaborate lace cuffs and trim, and her pushed-together bosom has been painted the same ash-white colour as her face and hands.

   "Holy moley," Warren says, in mild disbelief. "What happened to you, Jean?"

   "Count von Summers happened," Jean grins despite her hurry, exposing her fake fangs with relish. "He said 'I vant your blood', and I just couldn't resist. He's just _so irresistible… especially those eyes of his." She fans herself theatrically, tosses her newly jet-black locks, and chuckles. "You look good too, Warren – the nightshirt is very you. And you don't look too shabby, either, Betsy – I like the face paint." She gestures at the pair of us with her deathly-pale right hand, which has been tipped with black nail varnish and a couple of gaudy rings. "You go well together." She glances up the stairs again. "Sorry I can't stay, but I __really need to go to the bathroom. Hank's punch goes through me like a rocket. I don't know what he puts in it, but it's great stuff…" She points towards the top of the stairs. "I really gotta go, guys. I'll see you downstairs, okay?" She grips us both on the arm briefly and then moves quickly upstairs. When she is gone, Warren gives me a look that tells me he can't quite believe what he has just seen._

   "Suddenly I don't think _your face-paint is the scariest thing I'm going to see tonight," he says flatly, before rubbing his temples and taking a couple more steps down the stairs. "Might as well jump right in, right?"_

   I laugh, twirling my suit's tail around my finger again, and skip down the stairs two at a time, as if I am a little girl on Christmas morning. "Why not? I'll race you, Gabriel…"

   Downstairs, the mansion looks more like a gathering of mental patients than anything else – Bobby and Emma are dressed as Indiana Jones and Pussy Galore, Piotr has costumed himself as Frankenstein's Monster (complete with green make-up, and bolts stuck to the sides of his neck with spirit gum), Hank is wearing a deerstalker hat and carrying a large pipe, with a tweed cape slung over his shoulder, and the Professor, of all people, is wearing the uniform of a Star Trek captain. Ororo, for her part, has costumed herself in her tribe's vestments and carries an elaborately carved staff, while Scott stands off to one side, sipping a Bloody Mary through fake fangs. He is dressed in a similarly gothic fashion to Jean, with a white, stage-blood-stained ruffled shirt and tight velvet trousers underneath a high-collared cloak. His face is as ashen as Jean's, and his hair has also been dyed jet-black. "Warren!" he cries, as he sees us. "Come get yourself a drink!"

   Threading our way through the crowd, passing Kurt as he smoothes out his white disco suit and straightens the collar of his black shirt so that his medallion can hang free again, and squeezing past Paige Guthrie and Banshee as they duel with plastic lightsabres, we come to the drinks table, where Scott points us in the direction of the alcohol. "Hi, Warren – 

Betsy," he says, grinning so that his fangs gleam in the evening light, and in the flame of the jack o'lanterns spread at equal distances along the table. "Love the outfits – they really suit you." 

   "Thank you, Scott," I tell him gratefully. "I thought we'd go for the Jungian thing this year. Did it work?"

   "The… Jungian thing?" Scott repeats, bemused, raising an eyebrow over the rim of his ruby-quartz glasses.

   "Yes, the Jungian thing. Good and evil. The duality of man?" I slap Warren on the shoulder. "Of course, Warren _had to be 'good', so that kind of left me as 'evil.'" I wink at Scott. "Suits me, don't you think?"_

   "I guess it does, at that," Scott says, swallowing slightly. He coughs, and then speaks again. "Anyway… we've got beers, we've got punch, we've got cheese and pineapple squares, we've got little sausages on sticks… everything a good party needs." He gestures at the unopened bottles of vodka and scotch at the other end of the table. "We also have something a little stronger – Remy insisted that we buy some hard liquor for the drinking games later on."

   I clap my hands, delighted. "There's going to be drinking games?" Scott scratches the back of his neck and looks down at his feet for a moment or two.

   "Yeah. Remy wouldn't shut up until we let him organise them." He laughs. "I'm telling you, guys, he was like a kid in a candy store when we let him suggest a few good ones." He picks up the ladle in the punchbowl and says "Better have some of the punch to start you off, guys. Hank says he brewed it in his lab, and I'm afraid he'll get upset if we don't at least _try and drink it…" He finds two tumblers and fills them with the pinkish liquid from the bowl, a few assorted pieces of fruit falling to the bottom of each glass and settling there in small clumps. "Good luck with that… I had about three mouthfuls and I couldn't even __see any more." He holds up his Bloody Mary in a toast. "To paralysis."_

   I take one sip of the punch and the sweetness of it almost knocks me backwards. Scott notices me fighting for breath and laughs, his fake fangs almost shooting out of his mouth. "That good, huh?"

   "Oh yes," I say, resolutely, before turning to look at my husband – who is looking at me as if he expects me to turn into a frog at any moment. "Your turn, Warren."

   Warren swallows nervously, eyeing the punch with a wary glance. "Are you sure it's okay, Betsy? I only ask because, you know, the last time Hank tried brewing something, it turned into a sentient life form and started eating his lab…"

   I roll my eyes. "Oh, don't be silly, Warren – if this was _that bad, you'd have felt it by now, remember?" I touch his forehead with my fingertip. "Never mind – we can still get drunk together. Won't that be fun?"_

   Warren shrugs, before draining his glass and coughing. "That's still up in the air," he wheezes. "If I have to drink any more of that punch, I don't think I'll be going anywhere but Hangoverville, Arizona."

   I open my mouth to reply, but before I can do so, I see Rebecca come into the garden, clutching a shepherd's crook and clad in a blue and white gingham dress, a starched white bonnet on her head. Beside her is Jubilee, who has seen fit to come costumed as Trinity from _The Matrix. "Mum!" Rebecca cries, and she walks towards me as fast as her dress will allow her. When she is close enough to Warren, Scott and I, she says "Why are we doing this, again?"_

   "It's Halloween, sweetheart," I tell her reassuringly. "Traditionally, it's a night when all the evil spirits ran around causing havoc, but these days, all it's good for is an evening of dressing up and drinking a lot – oh yes, and for little children to run around their neighbourhoods collecting bucketfuls of chocolate and sweets. On that note…" I find the bowl of sweets on the table and give Rebecca a handful of M & Ms and miniature Snickers bars. "There you are, darling – something to start you off."

   Rebecca raises an eyebrow, before cracking the shell of one of the small pieces of chocolate with her teeth. "Thanks, Mum," she says sardonically. "I'll remember this for the rest of my life." Then she hugs me gently. "You look good, Mum," she tells me. "I like the tail."

   "I like your dress, too," I reply, truthfully. "Very sweet. All you need now is a flock of sheep, and you'd be all set. And as for you, young lady," I say, as Jubilee follows Rebecca towards us, "I wonder what Sean would say if he saw you in all that PVC."

   Jubilee grins. "He said 'Ye ain't gonna go out lookin' like that, are ye, lass?', actually," she machine-guns back at me, adjusting her stylish sunglasses and the imitation guns slung low on her hips before she kisses each of us on the cheek. "I think he thought I'd finally taken after Frosty. Like, as _if." She shrugs, before reaching over to the drinks table and finding a can of Coke, which she cracks open and takes a slug from without pausing. "So come on, guys – tell me everything. I hate being up in Boston, having to listen to Frosty and Irish tell me about physics and chemistry – especially when I could be down here, having all the fun with you guys." She jerks a thumb at Rebecca as she wanders away to the brightly-lit dance area, to request that Kurt waltz with her for a while. "So what's the story with your kid here? She come back from the future and try to kill you?" She laughs._

   "Not exactly," Scott says, uncomfortably, noticing my face falling. "I'll… tell you about it later, Jubilee."

   "Oh." Jubilee's expression indicates that she knows she has made a mistake, and also that she knows she should drop the subject. "I said something wrong, didn't I?"

   I hold out my right hand to grip hers, and shake my head. "No, Jubilation, you didn't. It's just… complicated, that's all. It's better that Scott explain it to you – he _is Rebecca's father, after all."_

   Jubilee's jaw drops, and she almost lets go of her drink can in her shock. "You're kidding me," she says, incredulously, before looking to Scott for confirmation of what I've just said, pointing at me as she says "She's kidding me, right? You and her, you didn't… you know… did you?"

   "Nope." Scott shrugs. "Like she said – it's a long story."

   Jubilee raises her eyebrows and pushes her lower lip forward slightly as she ponders the point. "Doesn't seem to be any other kind where we're concerned, does there?" she says, thoughtfully. Then, suddenly, her face lights up, and she squeals "Wolvie!" I look over my shoulder, and see the squat little man helping himself to a glass of whiskey. He is not costumed, instead wearing only his faded jeans and a plaid shirt, along with his cowboy hat and boots. Jubilee rushes him and throws her arms around his neck, lifting her legs off the ground and wrapping them around his waist. Logan barely manages to put his whiskey down before she attaches herself to him, and embraces her gently with his powerfully-muscled arms.

   "Hey, firecracker," he says quietly, a rare smile emerging on his lips. "How ya doin'?"

   "Better, now that you're here," Jubilee says, laying her head against his shoulder. "Missed ya, Wolvie."

   "Missed you too, squirt," Logan tells her, ruffling her hair and letting her find her feet again. "You look like you grew another couple of inches since the last time I saw you. Or is that just 'cause o' those heels you got on?"

   "Bit of both," Jubilee confesses. "So how come you're not in costume?"

   "I don't like costume parties," Logan says gruffly. "Besides, I don't have to look like an idiot to get drunk. Speakin' o' which…" and he gestures at Warren and Scott, "you guys look great. And so do you, Lizzy." He winks. "Kinda makes me want to end up in fire and brimstone, if they got devils like you down there." Gesturing towards the open area behind the mansion, he says "You want a dance, you know where to find me." Grasping Jubilee's hand gently after he has straightened his hat, he swaggers nonchalantly past Scott and Warren, handing Scott his empty glass with a single confident movement as he leaves our circle.

   "Well, at least Jubilee's happy," Warren says when Logan has disappeared. I make a tutting noise in the back of my throat.

   "Now, now, Warren," I say sternly. "Don't you dare. I have more important things to do." To illustrate my point, I entwine my right leg around Warren's hip and brush my lips against his. "Come and dance with me, Warren," I ask him. "We haven't danced for a while now, and I want to see you strut your stuff."

   Warren glances at Scott for a moment, as if searching desperately for a way out. "You mind, Scooter?" 

   Scott spreads his hands in front of him. "No, not at all. You go for it, Warren – I'm sure I can get Jean to dance with me instead. You and I just wouldn't look that good together. Sorry, but it's true."

   Warren holds a hand out to block his view of Scott. "Talk to the hand, Scooter," he says, in mock-indignation. "I'm sure he'll be more than happy to listen to you trying to be funny. Me, I got tired of it ten minutes after we arrived at the mansion."

   Scott laughs. "Sure you did, rich boy, sure you did. I'll see you out there once Jean comes back, okay?"

*

   "Okay, guys," Jean says through the microphone in her right hand, "now comes the time for you to judge the best costume. The winner gets this case of champagne, which the Professor kindly bought for us last week. And the losers all get candy bars, which we stole from Hank's private stash yesterday."

   Hank raises his hand to protest, but is shushed by Trish, who manages to keep her French maid's uniform from revealing too much at the same time.

   "So without further ado… who wants to enter the competition?" Jean stretches her hand back to the podium and catwalk behind her. "Come on, guys, _somebody has to go first. Who's going to show us what they've got?"_

   Alex Summers raises his hand. "Okay, Jean. I might as well."

   Jean claps her hands and points to the stairs behind her. "Come on up, Alex. Let's see what you have to show us this year."

   Alex climbs the steps and walks confidently down the catwalk, clad in nothing but a Tarzan loincloth, and carrying a thick wooden club, his hair combed into a neat Johnny Weissmuller side-parting instead of his normal tousled style. As he reaches the end of the ramp he poses for a second or two, flexing his muscles and striking various stances that show off his body's superb conditioning.

   "Take it off!" Jubilee howls, her voice indicating that she has clearly had just a touch too much to drink. Paige and Kitty giggle girlishly to themselves and throw flowers plucked from the nearest bush at Alex's feet. Alex grins and beckons Lorna up to the podium as well. Reluctantly, she joins him, her fur bikini and small plush chimpanzee perfectly complementing Alex's appearance. After a few moments, the pair of them are ushered off the stage by Jean.

   "Okay, that was Alex Summers and Lorna Dane as Tarzan and Jane," she says. "Who's next? Can't have them taking the prize by themselves, can we? Don't make me pick one of you at random, guys – I can easily steer one of you up here myself." She grins evilly at the expressions of disbelief that appear on a few faces in the crowd. "Hey, it's Halloween, guys… I can be as bad as I want to be. So come on up here and you'll avoid it altogether."

   Sam Guthrie raises his plastic tommy gun. "I'd like to go next, Mrs Summers, ma'am."

   Jean laughs. "Whatever you say, Mr Guthrie, sir. Sam Guthrie, ladies and gentlemen!" She claps her hands furiously as Sam walks a little uncertainly up the steps to the catwalk, his spats, angular hat and pinstripe suit marking him out as a Prohibition-era mobster, one who Al Capone might perhaps have employed. He poses uncertainly with his prop, as if he is mowing down a line of rival mobsters. Then, as he is getting more into the spirit of things, he sticks the plastic cigar in his left hand in his mouth and toughens up his act. He almost has to be physically floated off the stage by Jean, he is so keen on staying up there. "Sam Guthrie as Al Capone, everyone!" Jean says as she virtually yanks him off the podium.

   "Hey, Betsy," Warren whispers to me softly, "why don't you go up there?"

   "Because I'd rather let somebody else win, Warren," I whisper back. Then, turning to Rebecca, who has rejoined us, "Why don't you try your luck, sweetheart?" Rebecca looks at me as if she has been shot.

   "Oh no," she says assertively. "Not me; I couldn't."

   "Neither could I, the first time I saw this." I wink at her. "Don't worry, you'll manage it eventually." Jean has announced the next entrant in the competition – it is Kurt, who teleports himself up onto the stage instantaneously. When he rematerialises, I can see his musketeer costume again – complete with rapier, and a wide-brimmed hat worn at a rakish angle. He holds his sword up against his nose briefly, and then proceeds to show the crowd a succession of fencing moves that cut the air in front of him, the rapier's blade humming with speed. Acrobatically, he leaps into the air and somersaults twice, managing to catch his flying hat with his tail and set it back on his head as soon as he lands. After he has found his footing again, he clicks his heels together and holds his arms out to either side, head back, basking in the crowd's applause. "Thank you, thank you very much," he crows, his white teeth glinting against his indigo fur.

   "Still can't get the circus out of his blood," Warren laughs, observing Kurt's deep bow and subsequent flamboyant dismount from the podium. "He'll be a showman 'till he dies."

   "_Ja, Herr Worthington," Kurt says, as he materialises next to Warren – making my husband almost jump out of his skin in the process, "I think you are correct in that assumption. I was born a performer, and I shall die a performer." He grins, once more showing his mouthful of gleaming teeth. Warren punches Kurt playfully on the shoulder, and then points to the feathered hat that Kurt is wearing._

   "With that hat? I think the Fashion Police put out an APB on you last week, pal," he teases, before he stops in his tracks, pointing a finger at the catwalk. "Say, is that… Logan up there?" Sure enough, Logan is standing on the podium, looking distinctly uncomfortable. He gives an uncertain little finger wave to the crowd, and loosens his collar with the other hand. I'm positive I can see beads of sweat running down his cheeks – I suppose even Logan has things he is afraid of. Public spectacles seem to be at the top of that list…

   "Come on, Logan," Jean says encouragingly. "Give us a twirl." To comply with her request, Logan slowly turns three-hundred-sixty degrees, showing the assembled crowd every detail of his battered jacket and faded jeans.

   "Take it off!" Jubilee crows again, her words running together a little more than the last time, indicating that she's been at Hank's punch one more time than she should have. Logan's eyes flare wide as saucers, and he points a square-tipped finger straight at Jubilee.

   "I'll get you for this, squirt!" he howls, before leaping off the catwalk as fast as he can and chasing after the drunken Jubilee. Jean blinks in surprise, and coughs.

   "I don't think any of us saw that coming," she says matter-of-factly. "Next contestant?"

   "I'll do it," Domino calls, to a few looks of stunned surprise from the people around her – myself included. She hops up on the podium athletically and displays her costume (which Cable must have had to shoe-horn her into, knowing Domino's usual reluctance to attend these kinds of events). It is an immaculate black suit, along with a white shirt and a black tie, complemented by one of Domino's own guns (with the safety on, naturally) and a pair of jet-black sunglasses. Domino obviously can see the questioning looks in the crowd, and she puts her hand on her hip and raises an eyebrow. "Haven't you people ever seen _Men In Black?" She taps her toe on the catwalk's wooden surface and waits for the reference to sink in. "Philistines," she mutters. "Just call me Agent D, okay? Jeez…" She strikes a macho pose with her pulse rifle and, after flicking the safety on her gun to the "off" position, fires a bolt of tawny energy up into the evening sky. _

   Jean nods to Domino gratefully, and Domino takes the hint and somersaults off the podium with an almost unnatural grace, her energy rifle already slung around her body and stowed at her side. "We need some more girls to show us their costumes, guys," Jean says as Domino retreats back to her place next to Nathan. "Come on, ladies, you don't want to let the guys take that champagne, do you?" She claps briskly. "Who's next?"

   "How about me, Jean?" Rahne pipes up, before straightening out her long white "Princess Leia" dress and adjusting her meticulously-coiled hair just a little. She tugs at the cords of the dress' waistband and picks up the folds at its front so that she can make her way up the steps towards the front of the catwalk. She keeps her pace slow and deliberate – almost regal, in keeping with the character she is dressed as – and then, when she is at the end of the catwalk, she takes a couple of expansive bows and does a few twirls, before posing with her plastic laser gun and making as if she is firing at a horde of storm troopers creeping up behind us. Once she has exhausted her ideas of what to do, she stands coyly in front of us, a small, shy smile on her face, before she hops down off the catwalk and melts back into the crowd.

   "Rahne Sinclair, ladies and gentlemen!" Jean says enthusiastically, in a carefully-planned way of getting Rahne to feel less embarrassed. "We need one last lady, girls. Come on – who's going to win that case of champagne for the X-Women, and leave the boys with those melted munchies?"

   Rebecca glances at me. "I've changed my mind," she says. "I want to do it."

   I clap my hands excitedly. "Good for you," I tell her. "What made you change your mind?"

   "The fact that my costume is at least twice as good as Lorna's," Rebecca answers me, brightly, before she raises her hand. "I'll do it, Jean!" she calls as loudly as she can. "Let me do it!" Jean raises her eyebrows.

   "I do believe we have a final volunteer," she says. "Ladies and gentlemen – I give you Rebecca Braddock!"

   Rebecca strides up to the front of the catwalk, and poses with her crook, before doing a few circuits of the platform at the catwalk's end. I can sense her nervousness, but she seems happy enough otherwise – which she shows everybody else by smiling broadly and taking a bow.

   When she has left the podium, Jean takes what is effectively centre stage, and says "Okay, now the moment you've all been waiting for – voting!" She points to the Professor, who is sitting a few metres away from Warren and me, on the other side of the crowd. "Now, it's going to be a little simpler than just you telling us who you want to win by calling out their names when we ask you to. What the Professor and I want you all to do is think of the person you want to win for about two minutes or so, and we'll tally up the votes that way." She shrugs. "Trust me; it's easier than it sounds." She holds up her hand. "Start thinking… now!"

   I close my eyes, thinking immediately and somewhat guiltily of Rebecca – a parent's obligation, I know, but one I am genuinely glad to follow this time – until Jean says "Stop voting!" and then turns to Charles for a moment, to corroborate their results. After another moment or two's pause, she says "And the winner is… Lorna! Come on up here and get your champagne, Lorna – you deserve it, after wearing that bikini."

   Lorna laughs. "You have no idea."

*

   Warren and I are sat at one of the tables around the floodlit area, sipping fresh glasses of wine. The party has begun to disperse to other areas of the mansion, in order to get out of the approaching cold, but the two of us are content to sit in the evening air and talk to each other while the sun sets. There is soft music playing in the background – Marvin Gaye's _Sexual Healing – which makes Warren smile. _

   "I think we made that 'our song' when we first started going out," he says, chuckling softly. "Seemed to suit what we were doing perfectly, didn't it?"

   I laugh. "That it did. I'm glad we changed it to _Hey Jude, aren't you?"_

   "Absolutely," Warren replies. "I definitely think we made the right decision…" He glances over at the pool of illuminated grass created by the four intersecting beams of light from the floodlights, and says "I'll be damned…" He points subtly in his line of sight, to reveal to me something that I'd been studiously trying to ignore, as much for Rebecca's sake as my own. Humouring Warren, though, I turn and look tactfully at what he is pointing at. For the first time I actually _see what it was I could sense: Sam Guthrie and Rebecca dancing cheek to cheek, oblivious to the world – mobster and shepherd together with no idea of what is going on around them. _

   It's all I can do to suppress a cheer of delight when Sam kisses her.

   _Happy Halloween, Rebecca…_


End file.
